


Guests of One Another's Senses

by renquise



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-03
Updated: 2011-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:44:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Spy tries to fulfill his assignment, they’re long gone before he can glimpse them, let alone take photos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guests of One Another's Senses

The first time Spy tries to fulfill his assignment, they’re long gone before he can glimpse them, let alone take photos.

He had already spent weeks trying to intercept messages that could start him on the right track. Tapped the phones in the RED base, and received nothing of interest—just the occasional business call to Stuttgart with endless hours of medical jargon, calls from RED Demoman to his mother every Wednesday, regular as clockwork (and the occasional drunken dial over to the BLU base to ask Soldier if his refrigerator is running), and some surprisingly scandalous phone calls between RED Engineer and his wife.

All very enlightening in their own way, but of no use when it came to investigating RED Spy and his supposed lover.

By all rights, this sort of thing should be an assignment for your garden-variety PI, rather than a proper spy like himself. But this was the RED Spy they were dealing with, and much as Spy was loath to admit it, the man was good. It shouldn’t have been surprising to realize that it is far harder to uncover one of RED Spy’s trysts than most state secrets.

So he tips his chair back towards his files, lights another cigarette, and tries again. “Cherchez la femme,” was it? Very well.

The next time, all he gets is a flash of well-tailored suit and the click of heels, and the moment he turns the corner to follow them, they’re gone. He doesn’t remember until later that he’d reflexively taken a picture: when he develops the film, all he gets is the blurred outline of a brick wall, and the sweep of a small, heeled foot disappearing behind it.

Spy goes as far as to identify the shoe—nothing particularly notable, a blue department-store pump that could belong to anyone. Still, it’s something.

When he catches a real glimpse of them together, it’s by complete chance.

There are strictures against members and families of different factions associating with one another: once a BLU family, always a BLU family, generally. Most people don’t adhere too strictly to these unspoken rules, of course—neighbours are neighbours, and you aren’t going to deny someone a cup of sugar because their son works for RED.

But it’s still a surprise to see RED Spy, hand in hand with a woman he recognizes from Scout’s files.

They do look good together: blue dress, red suit. Scout’s mother barely comes up to RED Spy’s shoulder, but she keeps up with his stride easily. Her walk is purposeful and confident—not ungraceful, though some might call it slightly mannish in its refusal to mince around.

A little old lady gives him an odd look as she passes by, and Spy coughs and tries not to look like he was staring.

It isn’t until Engineer asks him how his bird-photography trip had gone that Spy realizes that he had completely forgotten to take any pictures.

\--

It gets easier after that, now that he has something more to go on—it’s never easy, no, but he begins to learn their patterns. As much as RED Spy switches things up and keeps an irregular schedule, it is possible to predict him to a certain extent.

The battles limit their travels, and Spy usually finds them at the same place. A small restaurant, with middle-range French cuisine, not right by the base, but close enough that no one raises an eyebrow at a man dining in a red ski mask.

He’s taken to positioning himself at a corner table—close enough to be able to get good pictures, and not be noticed, dissimulating his camera in whatever method was most appropriate to his disguise at the time. He’d thought that his recent camera-shoe had been particularly cunning. This time, it’s a mere buttonhole camera, but sometimes, the classics were the best.

RED Spy pulls back the chair for her, a gesture which she accepts ruefully, as if it were an ongoing subject of contention.

Her hands lift to his mask, her fingers slipping under, but he stops her hands. Kisses the tips of her fingers. “Not here,” Spy can make out, the movements of Red’s lips partially hidden by her hair. Scout’s mother slides her hands down his chest instead.

So she’s had his mask off before—she knows the man well, far better than Spy had first expected.

Is RED Spy not removing his mask out of precaution, or because he knows someone’s there? For all Spy knows, it could be a setup. But he’s checked—it is Scout’s mother, he is sure of that. RED Spy would not subject his lady to such an indignity, either. Despite the man’s lack of scruples, he seems to have a deeply-ingrained sense of chivalry, judging from the other pictures he’s taken of them: RED Spy opening a door for Scout’s mother, lighting her cigarette for her.

It makes him wonder how they met. If it had been Red who had approached her at a bar, drawn by her long legs. Or if it had been Scout’s mother who had tapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Hey stranger, you’re looking lonely,” in that particular accent of hers.

As far as Spy knows, Scout’s mother is a perfectly normal woman. She dresses well, but doesn’t seem to splurge on clothes, either—Spy can notice repair work on some of her dresses, neat stitches barely visible against the blue fabric. She doesn’t often opt for the typical housewife’s shirtdress, preferring fitted dresses that cling to her curves. Spy decidedly doesn’t mind that tendency. She’s not young, no, but she’s got a certain allure and poise that only comes with age. Like a fine wine, if Spy were one for clichés.

He can find marriage records—married once, twice, to men of no consequence, and divorced both. No criminal record. A former government job about twelve years ago, and nothing after that—the paper trail dies off. All very normal for a housewife.

It’s all dreadfully normal, especially for a woman who raised Scout. Spy can’t help but think that there’s something there, a nagging thought at the back of his mind. No indication of a job, even after divorcing her second husband—surely she could not support a family of nine with only child support.

And if she has different names on both marriage certificates, well. Intriguing, but not conclusive in any way.

Of course, all of this is more than he knows about Red, but that’s only to be expected. Red is all that a spy should be, a mystery wrapped in an enigma and so on and so forth—the secrecy is entirely unsurprising. Comfortingly familiar, even, while the gaps in Scout’s mother’s file are the real mystery.

The only things he knows about Red are bizarrely intimate: that he smokes gauloises, that he likes a good scotch, that he favours corner booths in restaurants, that he takes his coffee black. That he likes women with curves and a sharp wit.

And that he’s a smug bastard, but Spy knew that already.

He wonders, sometimes, how they are when they are together. If Red bears Scout’s mother down onto a bed of roses, or something equally ridiculous. Or if Scout’s mother pushes him up against the wall, the line of her leg fitting along his hip.

There are a few moments where Spy catches little gestures—Scout’s mother adjusting Red’s collar, Red placing a kiss on the nape of her neck as he helps her into her coat after dinner and startling a delighted laugh out of her, their joined hands swinging as they walk together.

Those make him raise an eyebrow behind his disguise. There’s genuine fondness there, the kind that comes with time and a certain degree of trust that is entirely un-spy like.

Spy still doesn’t know how much Scout’s mother knows about her paramour’s profession. The mask should say it all, really—RED, a spy—and that makes the intentions of his counterpart still more opaque. Why advertise the fact that he’s a RED Spy? With his skills, he could easily pass as a more pedestrian man.

Spy can only conclude that the mask must have sort of influence upon Scout’s mother—either the woman enjoys a touch of danger in her bedroom, or there’s something she wants from RED, and RED Spy knows that. After all, why risk his professional identity, and more, for the sake of a tryst? Why go about it with such secrecy?

The back of his mind insists that there’s a very simple possibility. But love is such a trite motive.

\--

By his notes, it’s been about a month of surveillance when he catches them at a hotel. New York. A little hotel, not overly flashy, but not cheap, either. Fourth floor, room 417—three windows over from the corner of the building.

Spy adjusts the telephoto lens and nudges aside the blinds, pushing away the carton of takeaway on the table—not his preference, of course, but needs must. It’s a run-of-the-mill little apartment, and he had to bribe the landlord to let him use it for a few days,but it has the perfect angle to see into the hotel room.

He can’t help but chuckle a bit, because the whole process seems oddly familiar to that of a certain associate of his. He hasn’t resorted to storing his urine in jars yet, thankfully.

Scout’s mother comes in first, flicking on the lights. Immaculately dressed, as usual. She sets her clutch on the side table and drapes her coat on the end of the bed, unpinning her hat and drawing off her gloves. Sits on the bed. A few seconds after, she gets up and goes to the window. Spy can see her expression, her lips slightly parted: anxious, excited.

He knows she can’t see him, but it still makes his hands tense on his camera when she casts her glance over the adjacent building.

She startles a little, and he nudges his camera ever so slightly to get a better view of the door. Ah. Monsieur Red, right on time.

She doesn’t rush towards him. Spy can’t make out their lips, but they seem to be talking. Hotel rooms are so often sterile, rushed, but they move like they own the space, like they have all the time in the world, Scout’s mother grasping Red’s tie and pulling him down for a kiss.

When Scout’s mother pushes Red’s shirt off his shoulders, Spy can’t help but notice the ways that Red differs from his. He’s a spy—he’s trained to watch for the details.

They’ve got similar bodies, taut and lean, though he has to admit that Red is perhaps a little wider in the shoulders than he. Slightly darker skin than himself, as well—maybe some Italian blood in him, or perhaps Spanish. A patch of tight scar tissue, probably courtesy of Soldier, along Red’s shoulder, where Spy has a burn from their Pyro. A long, curving scar against his side. And, ah, it’s undeniably satisfying to see a neat backstab scar, just a little to the right of his spine. He takes another picture, shutter snapping shut.

They move to the bed, and he adjusts the focus with a flick of his hand, careful not to jostle the tripod.

She tugs him down, her hands wrapping around his shoulders. Scout’s mother touches him with the confidence and ease that comes from familiarity—Spy notes the way that her fingers neatly avoid the line of a scar across Red’s back.

He zooms in a touch too far, the slats framing the movement of Red’s hand down Scout’s mother’s back, the generous curve of her hips. It’s completely useless as a surveillance photo, the subjects unidentifiable, but the curve of skin set against the slats of the shades has Spy licking his lips, his mouth suddenly very dry. Even now, he’s been following them long enough that he knows their bodies, guessing at the curves and angles.

Red is bent over her body, kissing down her chest and presumably taking her nipple into his mouth. Spy certainly hopes he is—Scout’s mother has unusually beautiful breasts for her age. Scout’s mother wraps a leg around Red’s thigh and pushes her hips up against his cock, demanding.

Red surges up to meet her lips, and she pulls away with a quick kiss to stride across the room and rummage quickly in her purse for a condom. Spy laughs to himself as Red watches the sway of her hips—understandably. Still, there’s that soft quirk to Red’s smile that makes Spy pause.

Spy can see the moment when Red slips inside her, his mouth open and gasping soundlessly against her throat, her fingers gripping his shoulders and his back arching against the sheets.

Spy can’t help but echo the curve of Scout’s mother’s lips when Red lifts her, because honestly, that’s just showing off, now. She wraps her legs around his waist, ankles fitting together at the small of his back, her mouth open in a silent laugh.

When she rocks down onto Red, a smile on her lips, a whorl of dark hair clinging to her cheek, Spy hisses through his teeth, the low burn in his skin flaring up, pooling low in his stomach.

It doesn’t take much to imagine himself between their bodies—the soft curves of Scout’s mother, the angles of his counterpart.

Perhaps he’s been discovered, and Red has him pinned to the bed, pushing roughly into him, his arms straining against Red’s hold. Scout’s mother watching and occasionally making a suggestion, perched on the bed with a cigarette perched in her hand.

Or perhaps Scout’s mother is been an agent for BLU, and all she needs is BLU Spy’s presence to turn the tables on RED Spy and get the information she needed all along, but not before Spy has Red bound and kneeling at his feet, Scout’s mother pushing a graceful heeled foot into Red’s back and forcing him to take Spy deeper.

Or maybe he’s simply pressed between the two of them as they communicate silently over his shoulder, familiar and playful, and make his body shudder with their touches, manicured nails and rougher gun-callused hands—

Her eyes open, and for one unsettling moment, she might as well be staring directly at him, and there’s just the slightest tilt of Red’s head following her gaze. It’s just a passing moment, a flicker of possible connection, but it has him shuddering, hard and unexpected. He catches the moan by reflex.

When Spy opens his eyes, Red and Scout’s mother are lying on the bed, curled into each other. He follows Red’s hand as he traces over the curve of Scout’s mother’s hip.

Spy pulls back, rearranging his clothing. He disassembles the tripod, and shrugs on his suit jacket. Lifting his camera, he takes one last glance out the window. Just in case.

Red is sitting on the bed, his pants on, but still barefoot, a cigarette hanging between his fingers. Scout’s mother leans into the mirror, redoing her makeup. The sleeves of Red’s shirt droop around her wrists, and she nudges them out of the way to apply a smooth stroke of eyeliner. It suddenly feels far too intimate, here, in this in-between space.

He doesn’t take a photo. Perhaps it’s selfish, but he wants this moment for himself alone.

He has enough mind to snap one last picture—Scout’s mother adjusting Red’s mask, before she tugs him down for another kiss. She stays in the circle of his arms for a long time, her head on his chest. Spy can’t make out what she’s saying.

\--

He develops his photos in an impromptu dark room converted from one of Engineer’s many workshops. He’d finally been able to convince Engineer that he really didn’t need a fifth workshop, and Engineer had reluctantly passed the space over to him—there are still sentry parts and semi-functional experiments covered with dustcloths.

Unnervingly, a few of them still chirrup or beep from time to time, but Engineer had assured him that there was nothing that could cause any permanent damage.

Despite the numerous signs on the door, he can’t count the number of negatives that have been ruined by Soldier slamming the door open saying, “Hop to it, crouton, I am calling a staff meeting regarding the proper all-American usage of the latrines, and I will not tolerate any absenteeism!”

Still, it does the job, and the negatives pinned to the walls are slowly starting to eclipse Engineer’s old blueprints.

Red is always immediately recognizable, the outline of his mask stark and crisp, molded along the curve of his skull. His hands, too, are distinctive—long-fingered, with the strong lines of bones encased in his leather gloves.

Then, the contours of Scout’s mother’s face appear in the chemicals, fading into view. Scout’s mother isn’t particularly beautiful. Spy has seduced far more ravishing beauties than her, in his time. A long face, with a nose that’s perhaps a little too sharp. A high forehead. Dark eyes, with laugh lines radiating from the corners. A few age spots by her ear, partially dissimulated by makeup.

He transfers the photo to the stop bath, and then pins the photo up to dry. He never seems to notice those little imperfections in person, so the photos are useful.

When he holds the negatives up to the light, her dark hair looks shining white, the bright shadows of her eyelashes feathering over her cheeks.

Spy thinks that something ought to have changed, somehow. He’s caught them—on film, anyways. His mission—as much as he can still call it a mission—is accomplished.

But he should take a few more photos of them out on the town. Gathering additional intelligence, that’s all.

\--

Sniper knocks on his door. “Hey, Demo and th’ others were wondering if you were going to be there this week for bridge or not,” he says, taking a sip of coffee. Sniper raises his eyebrows at the surveillance photos, notes, and research pinned around Spy’s desk, but says nothing further.

“I believe not. Give them my excuses.” The weekly games were nice, yes, and Pyro was a surprisingly excellent bridge partner, but he was so very close to spotting the next meetup: possibly in southern France, since they’d gotten a week or so off.

“Right-o. I’ll take your usual place, then.” Another sip. “Y’ ought to take a break, though.”

Spy laughs, and waves his hand. “My job doesn’t end once I’m off the battlefield, unlike yours, bushman.”

Sniper shrugs eloquently. “Guess not.”

“It will all be done soon, anyways. A few minor inconveniences that made the job a tad more complicated, that’s all.”

“I’ll say. I feel like I’ve hardly seen ya outside of work, lately.”

Spy scoffed. “Mon dieu, did you miss my charming presence? How touching.”

The corner of Sniper’s mouth quirks. “Wouldn’t go that far, but it’d be good to see your ugly mug around.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Strange, he could remember when he had been the one to come and bother Sniper in his secluded hideouts.

“What is it you’re chasing after, anyways?” Sniper says, with the distinct air of someone not used to long conversations fishing after a subject.

“A few things concerning RED Spy. Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about,” Spy says, as if it were a thing of little consequence. And it is, really, or at least it should be.

Sniper scowls. “Can’t see what you’d want with that slimy git.”

Spy can’t quite answer that statement. More than you’d think? Yes, a slimy git, but a smart one, with excellent taste in women? He settles for saying, “RED-BLU business, you know how it is.”

Sniper snorts inelegantly. “Fine then, keep yer secrets, mate.”

\--

He rifles through Scout’s letters when he’s out—he doesn’t even need to pick the lock, unsurprisingly.

There’s little to be gleaned from them, except enough motherly concern to choke a horse. She signs her letters, “Take care of yourself, lots of love, Ma.” A few passing references to her other sons—a mechanic, a teacher, a factory worker, and a few grandchildren already.

He does get an address in Boston.

Scout catches him walking out of his room, but it’s of no matter. “Your pornography collection is sadly lacking, you know. Maybe you should look into Sniper’s Sheep Shearing Monthly,” Spy says, and breezes off with Scout’s spluttering at his back.

He manages to get out to Boston while the team is on leave. The address from Scout’s letters belongs to an apartment complex with an irritable, but easily charmed manager. It only takes a few smoothly-worded sentences to convince her that he’s a friend of the family and that he just needs access to the apartment to check on it while the family’s gone. The manager leads him up the stairs, resting so often at the landings for her bad hip.

“Oh I tells ya, it’s quite the family she’s got there. Saw practically the whole lot o’ them growin’ up. Don’t know how she managed to keep them all in order, but she did,” she says with a voice that’s weathered a few decades’ worth of cigarette packets, “Had trouble with the rent earlier on, but I guess she picked up a new job after her second husband moved out. Miserable bastard, she was well rid of him. Anyways, never had trouble with the rent after that. Kept her busy, though. In and out of the house, and always travelin’. She took good care of her boys, though. Never let them down.”

“That sounds like her, madame,” he says—it doesn’t take much to keep the flood of information going.

“Got a new man, now, from what I hears. Has for a couple years now. Only seen him come ‘round once, though—tall, dapper type, much like you, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”

Spy is fairly sure he just got his rear pinched by an old woman with a bandy hip. The things he does for the job.

“Lock th’ door behind ya when you’re done,” she grunts, and stumps back down the stairs.

The apartment itself is small, but neat. A doorjamb, with the heights of nine boys marching up from his thigh to above his head in small penciled dashes. A rosary hanging by the door. A closet full of blue dresses. A folder of neatly-filed bills and receipts, largely for household amenities (though there are a few receipts for unusual materials from the hardware store that make him pause). Not a hint of her arrangement with Red.

He thanks the landlady on his way out, and gets another pinch to the backside for his troubles.

\--

The next time he sees them is a brief meeting in a park near the usual restaurant. They’re sitting next to each other on a bench as Spy feeds the ducks by the pond, briefly adjusting his disguise beard.

Red hands her his new gun—ah, yes, Spy remembers dying at the end of that monstrosity a few times. Spy rolls his eyes. Impress the lady with your shiny new penis extension. Always one for class, Red.

Scout’s mother takes it, hefting it easily despite the way it dwarfs her hands. She checks the safety, flicks open the chamber to inspect the inside, and sights down the barrel, her trigger finger lying along the barrel. Efficient, like a professional. She laughs, then, looking at the side of the barrel, and raises an eyebrow at Red. Red shrugs sheepishly.

She laughs again, and pushes aside Red’s jacket to reholster his gun. She straightens his jacket with a few tugs, so that it hangs cleanly, without the slightest hint of the holster beneath.

Red turns to the package resting beside them on the bench—beautifully wrapped, with a flower on top. Small, about the size of a book. A necklace, perhaps? He’d hoped Red would have a little imagination.

Scout’s mother kisses Red on the cheek, and then shakes the package by her ear, grinning. She mouths something—Spy can’t hear them from this distance. Red shakes his head in response, gesturing for her to open the package.

She grins when she opens the package—but rather than draping out a string of pearls or slipping out a bracelet, she lifts a small pearl-handled revolver.

Red’s hand slips under the edge of her dress before Scout’s mother slaps his hand away playfully, and Red holds his hands up, looking as innocent as possible. Scout’s mother pushes up the edge of her dress herself, quickly replacing a small, practical gun from a holster on her thigh with the new revolver in one efficient, practiced motion. She smooths her dress back over the holster without missing a beat, and kisses Red as she tucks the other gun in her purse.

Spy gapes a little, ducks gathering around his feet as the mound of crumbs at his feet grows larger and larger. After a moment, Spy finally shuts his mouth and kicks his way out of the fray of ducks circling him.

It isn’t unexpected, precisely, but Spy is fairly sure that Scout does not know exactly what his mother does for a living.

\--

Spy invites an old friend to dinner a few days later. He studiously avoids Red’s usual restaurant. Jaqueline (he’s always known her as Jaqueline, though the chances of it being her real name are slim to none) is as charming and beautiful as ever, down to her perfect red nails. Her hair is blonde, this time.

“Another job?” he ventures over wine.

“Darling, you know I can’t tell you anything about that, for your own sake,” she drawls. She taps her fingertips on her wine glass. “And you usually don’t ask.”

He shrugs. “I’m living dangerously, these days.”

Jaqueline doesn’t respond immediately. “You’re distracted,” she says at last.

“Only by your ravishing looks, ma chère,” Spy says automatically.

She rolls her eyes. “All right, I won’t ask, either.”

Later, once they’re lying in appropriately disheveled sheets, he asks her if she knows of any operatives based out of Boston--dark-haired, in their late forties, possibly in contact with a spy from RED.

Jaqueline looks thoughtful, running a hand through her mussed hair and no doubt rifling through her mental rolodex. “Can’t think of any, darling—RED, BLU, or unaffiliated. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything. I’m just mostly infallible, you know.” She looks at him. “Who is she?”

“No one important,” Spy says, exhaling a mouthful of smoke.

“Of course,” Jaqueline says, slinging her legs over the side of the bed to reach for her stockings. “She could be in deep cover, or maybe involved in something big—TF Industries-big, I mean.” She dresses quickly and tosses him a kiss from the door. “You’ll keep me updated, won’t you?”

Spy waves in response. Well, at least he didn’t feel too dense for not noticing it earlier.

\--

A few weeks later, Spy rents a room opposite a hotel—if he can catch them in the act once again, it would surely be enough evidence to complete the file to his satisfaction. But when he draws the curtain aside at the assigned time, tripod and camera set up, he finds no one. Only a piece of hotel stationery tucked into the window frame.

When he zooms in, he can recognize the writing from the packages Scout gets from time to time—neat, round, cursive with a slight lean to the right, and a distinctive flourish on the y: “Well, hello there—reservations at 8, corner of Main and Marshall, if can make it.”

And, well, Spy can’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity of that as he packs his camera away, placing it back into its case.

When he gets to the restaurant, there are two notes hidden under the salt shaker, when he steps forward with the pretence of clearing the table:

“Shame you couldn’t join us. The scallops were quite good. Still, another time.”

“Did you find what you wanted when you passed by that time, Mr. Blue? You ought to watch who you talk to—Mrs. Browning doesn’t just chatter to so-called long lost relatives. PS, the coffee kettle’s in the second shelf of the pantry—make yourself a cuppa joe next time you drop by.”

He’s tucking the notes away into his jacket when a waiter steps up, tapping him discreetly on the shoulder. “Sir? The gentleman informed us that you would be covering the bill.”

Spy rolls his eyes, orders a glass of scotch, and makes sure to get a receipt. If he has to deal with Red’s damnable stunts, he might as well get BLU to cover it.

\--

The particular problem is that it only becomes more interesting, now that they are aware of him.

Another note, under his espresso cup when he stakes out a cafe: “Hello, M. Bleu. So pleasant to see you again. I would recommend a better disguise next time, however—that false beard is horrendous.”

And another in the pocket of his suit, after he misses them at the theatre: “Hey there, Mr. Blue. We just keep on missing each other, don’t we? Say hi to my boy for me.”

They go in the file, too.

The notes are a rarity, however, and just to spite him, most of the notes don’t have any clues as to their next meet-up. But, it happens just often enough—a Viginiere cipher tucked into the letters, a clue worthy of Demoman’s passion for cryptic crosswords—that Spy has to analyse every one, sifting through Red’s smug, witty quips and Scout’s mother’s deceptively gentle jibes for something, anything.

For all Spy knows, there are messages in the artful mess of dinnerware spread across the table. Two teaspoons in a dish, pointing at roughly ten and three: ten-fifteen? Ten-to-three? A W traced into a bit of spilled salt on the tablecloth: Wednesday?

Somewhere, Red is probably laughing.

For all his spying, he’s still never caught them in the act again, and Spy tells himself that once he photographs that evidence, he’ll close the file and leave Red and Scout’s mother to do whatever they please.

The file in his room grows and grows, prints and negatives and notes spilling out onto his desk.

\--

Spy is preoccupied with the five previous notes when he hears a knock at his door. There seemed to be a pattern, an alternation between Red and Scout’s mother, almost a conversation, as if they were talking to each other, rather than him. That kind of coding was unlike Red’s habits, though the playful, thinly-veiled insult definitely wasn’t.

He jumps when Sniper tapped him on the shoulder.

Sniper has an odd look on his face when Spy turns around with as bored a “what?” as he could muster.

“Nothin’, mate. Soldier’s holding another meeting, though. Think it’s about the great Soviet conspiracy against cleaning out the fridge, this time.”

Spy waves the words away. “I believe I’ll skip this one.”

“All right, then.” Sniper shrugs. “You know, you’re usually the one sneakin’ up on me, not the other way ‘round.”

Spy turns back to his desk. “I had other things to occupy my considerable skills of perception.”

“Uh-huh,” Sniper says, placing his fingers on a strip of negatives that had slipped out of the folder and turning it towards him. (Two weeks ago, Monday, 19h30, a meeting at a local café.)

Spy draws the negatives away from Sniper, carefully slipping them back into the folder. “Top-secret, bushman. On a need-to-know basis,” he says with a roguish smirk.

“Right,” Sniper says, sticking his hands in his pockets. “They’re real nice snaps, spook.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Spy tosses off. “I think they capture the ephemeral nature of connection in the modern world, not to mention RED Spy’s lack of notice of his surroundings.”

They were nice, though—the fading light had caught in Scout’s mother’s hair when she had leaned towards Red, a hand on his arm.

Sniper looks at him. “Somethin’ like that, I reckon. You’re a strange one sometimes, you know that. RED Spy still givin’ you trouble, then?”

“Of course not. They’re of little consequence,” Spy scoffs.

Sniper looks pointedly at the folder. “Right then.”

Spy leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette, offering one to Sniper. “I’m simply being thorough, you understand.”

“’Course, yeah,” Sniper says, accepting the cigarette. “Ta. Part of the job, I guess.”

Something tense in Spy’s chest loosens slightly at that. “Yes. All part of the job.” He blows out a steam of smoke.

Part of the job.

\--

“Hey there, Mr. Blue. Don’t know which table you’re at tonight, but you’re out there somewhere, aren’t you? I hope you ordered the fish—it was darn good tonight.”

“Good evening again, M. Bleu. For your edification, I would have recommended the ’63 Chateau-de-la-Tour to go with the fish.”

\--

And then there’s the time where he is sure, completely sure that he could catch them in the act. It hadn’t been easy to track them down, let alone figure out their next rendez-vous. He creeps up behind the hotel bushes (no doubt soiling the knees of his suit, but one had to make sacrifices for the job). Peeks over the sill.

Sees two figures in the room, lying on the bed, in quite an athletic position.

Realizes that the two figures are unusually still, and unusually stiff-looking.

An inflatable doll, and a store mannequin with a stiff smile.

Spy sighs at Red’s lack of class, but takes a photo. And tries not to smirk.

He reminds himself that it would be terribly immature to return the mannequins to their usual table at the restaurant, not to mention potentially incriminating. A good surveillance job didn’t entail interacting with the targets, after all.

Then again, the look on Red’s face would be priceless.

\--

He does take on additional jobs for BLU and for independent employers, if they can afford his fees. They are all exciting, he supposes. It is unnerving, however, to be dutifully seducing the nubile daughter of a mad scientist in order to gain access to his blueprints, and to realize that he would rather be doing something as mundane as a stakeout.

Even more unnerving, however, is to get to the inner sanctum and the doomsday device, only to realize that the necessary wires have already been severed and tied into a bow, a note tucked into it like a present:

“So good of you to distract the minions for me! Already taken care of this—just activate the self-destruct on the way out, will you?”

The resulting explosion is really quite nice.

\--

Two notes, this time, when he misses them:

“I do wonder how many photos you have of us, Mr. Blue. You’ll need an album, soon enough!”

And:

“Any particularly good ones? I’ve always wanted a photo of ma petite chou-fleur to keep by my heart.” A scribble at the bottom, in the same writing as the first: “Ignore him, he’s being ridiculous again.”

Spy rolls his eyes.

(The next time RED Spy respawns after being stabbed by Spy, he would find a tasteful profile of Scout’s mother tucked in his cigarette case. He would also find that all his cigarettes had been stolen, however.)

\--

He takes to ordering the same thing as them, when he can get away with it. Show me a man’s stomach, and I will show you the man, or somesuch.

Much as Scout likes to say otherwise, he’s never been one for escargot, and he’s starting to think that Red is ordering it just to spite him.

The waiter stops by his table, setting down a tumbler of scotch. “From the gentleman and his lady at the table in the corner, sir,” he says, in a carefully neutral tone of voice that signals that he has no idea what this is about, and no desire to know, thank you.

Spy picks up the glass and looks at them over the rim of his cup. In the corner, Red smirks at him, raises his own tumbler, and takes a swig from it. Spy feels the corner of his mouth curling up, damn the cocky bastard, and raises his own tumbler to his lips.

The rational part of his brain points out that accepting drinks from your enemy is a good way to shorten your lifespan considerably, but he sips. They wouldn’t off him, no. The same way he won’t off them. They’re having far too much fun for such a commonplace ending.

The scotch burns pleasantly all the way down, and when Spy looks at the corner table again, they’re both gone. Of course.

\--

He takes another outside job, this time aiming to get a sheaf of secret documents from the unusually well-protected office of a supposed lamb farmer association in Cairo. Spy is fairly sure that most animal husbandry associations do not have a gauntlet of burly, heavily-armed men patrolling their hallways, nor a sophisticated safe enclosing records of weapons trading—pardon, of animal breeding history.

When he gets to the main office, the doorknob yields easily under his fingers, and he palms his gun, slowly opening the door. The room is dark, but for the sliver of light from the door falling across a man sitting behind the desk, a curl of cigar smoke weaving around his hand from its resting place in the ashtray.

A neat garotte mark around his neck, his head slumped back over the back of his chair. A slip of paper tucked into his breast pocket like a calling card, and Spy doesn't need to check the handwriting to know whose. "I leave the safe to you, M. Bleu, as it is of no interest to me."

The safe is easy to crack, even without the proper equipment, and he has it open in a and as soon as he creaks open the door, there's a whooshing sound and a small ball of flame—enough to singe his eyebrows and set the folder inside burning merrily.

Spy plucks the charred remains of his cigarette out of his mouth and tosses it inside the safe. Well then.

If Red was going to stoop to juvenile booby traps, he doesn't see why he shouldn't.

\--/p>

More notes, at the usual table:

“M. Bleu, much as I appreciate your assistance with the removal of secret information from the Russian embassy, I must insist that you desist from ruining my suits.”

“Ignore him, the look on his face was PRICELESS. I have to admit, I’m awfully curious how you managed to place the paint balloon inside the safe without leaving a mark.”

“That said, I am willing to forgive and forget for a packet of cigarettes.”

\--

The fight on the battlefield is much the same as always. As much as Engineer might bemoan the loss of one of his machines, Spy can’t help but admire Red’s handiwork—clean, quick, and deadly. He and Red don’t have much reason to run into each other during battles, usually.

When they do meet, it’s messy. None of the elegance or efficiency of a stab to the back. It’s a matter of trying to get close enough for a good knife blow, or disengaging for long enough to reach for his revolver and finish Red off that way. He holds his own, of course, but even when he doesn’t fall to Red’s knife or Ambassador, the fight usually leaves him nursing knife wounds. Red knows how to strike, to incapacitate with a few precise slices.

Respawn heals it all, of course, but Spy sometimes thinks he can feel the leftover sting of cuts, as if chafing against the material of his suit.

(A strike to his leg that had barely avoided the artery, a stab at his gut, a slice across the tendons of his arm that forced him to drop his knife—it’s perhaps a little strange that he can remember them all, but he’s always had a good memory. Besides, he needs to remember in order to pay Red back. With interest, naturally.)

Red doesn’t even show a flicker of recognition, or even a smug smirk. Somehow, it feels like things should be different.

He does see Red without his mask, once.

There’s no great reveal, no sudden enlightenment—just a man, slightly older than himself. A strong Italian nose, the sharp slash of a scar running up to his hairline. When Red smirks, it’s familiar in a way that makes Spy’s stomach curl, just as insufferably untouchable without his mask as with it.

\--

BLU sends a letter inquiring as to the progress of his assignment, and Spy sends back a telegram saying that it is proceeding very satisfactorily, thank you: this a delicate case, one that has to be approached with caution and subtlety.

The increasingly impatient letters from BLU don’t go in the file—they’re rather irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

\--

A series of notes, after they’ve led him on a merry scavenger hunt across a few continents.

Kuala Lumpur:

“Are you lonely, Mr. Blue? Just you and your camera—can’t be much of a date, can it? I imagine you’d much rather be sitting with some charming company. You must go out with girls pretty often. Wine ‘em, dine ‘em, the whole shebang.”

“You know, M. Bleu, I’ve considered coming over to your corner and plucking that camera out of your hands, letting it drop to the floor. It’s a fine piece of technology, I’m sure, but technology can be so distancing.”

Leningrad:

“What would you do if I came on over, though? Pulled out the chair beside you, put a hand on your arm. Would you pretend not to know me? Say, excusez-moi madame, you must be looking for someone similar, though far less dashing? Because I reckon you know me a bit. Maybe not as well as you’d like to think—all you spies are ever so vain—but maybe a bit.”

“And then, dragging you out to a dark alley. Pinning you to the wall and ripping away whatever ridiculous costume you may have on at the time. Holding a blade to your carotid, and—but oh, we are civilized men, aren’t we? And ma chou-fleur is quite the civilized lady. I wouldn’t stab you outside of the bounds of respawn—that would cause far too much trouble.”

Hong Kong:

“And what if I insisted? Slid closer to you, said, no, you must remember me from somewhere. That thing, with the place. Of course you remember. And then, if I traced my fingers down your tie. You must wear a waistcoat underneath your suit jacket, I suppose. A proper three-piece. I wonder if you keep your knife on the left side, same as my man.”

“But I could still crowd you against the wall. Place my fingers to your pulse, fit them around your throat. Your pulse would be perfectly calm, wouldn’t it? Of course it would. Unflappable, untouchable. Even if I pressed my lips to it, just above the blade, it would not even flutter.”

Zurich:

“You wouldn’t want to kick up a fuss, would you? So would you let me trace my fingers down your arm, find the place where your gloves meet your cuffs. Circle around the outcrop of your wristbone, skin against skin. You spies do ever cover yourself up so. I wonder what kinds of scars you keep hidden, Mr. Blue. You both look the same in your suits, but you’ve got to be different under there.”

“And what then, M. Bleu? Would you twist away, escape? Would you laugh in my face? Or would we settle this like gentlemen?”

Buenos Aires:

“Next time, Mr. Blue.”

“You can’t run forever, M. Bleu.”

These he is tempted to dispose of. Somehow, they strike a little too close.

\--

Spy yields up a photo to them, sometimes. A set of negatives. A perfectly-framed print of the two of them. He tells himself it’s a warning—he has their reputations in the palm of his hand. But it feels more like a gift.

He chases after them, and sometimes he catches them, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes there’s a note. Sometimes there’s not.

Spy finds himself in the makeshift darkroom again, the smell of chemicals heavy on the air. He peels off the gloves protecting his hands from the chemicals. The safelight dyes his hands a deep red when he hangs the drying prints across the room.

When he opens the file to slip the new notes in, a few photos slip out—the ones that started this all, the hotel, the window with the blinds.

The clink of his belt is loud in the dark, and he leans against the door as he strokes a hand over his cock. He can fill in the gaps between the photos—the shifting muscle in Red’s back and the soft weight of Scout’s mother’s breasts, and their smiles just out of frame.

He slumps back against the door of the darkroom, and his gasp seems to echo off the walls.

\--

When Spy comes to the next appointed meeting, he cases the surroundings as usual—just because he’s gotten used to the two of them doesn’t mean that he can forego basic caution.

He almost doesn’t notice the glint of a pair of binoculars on a rooftop opposite their restaurant.

Spy finds himself running up the stairs of the building, trying not to panic. It must have been something else. His imagination. But whatever it is, it can’t be good.

When Spy bursts onto the roof, there’s another spy with a rifle by the edge of the building. The other spy isn’t surprised—he doesn’t put the gun down, but waves casually.

“About time you noticed me,” the man says.

“Care to explain what you are doing here?” Spy says, his voice low. His knife is already flicked out in his hand, though the other spy seems to ignore that.

The other spy checks his gun quickly. “Nothing to concern yourself about. I merely got sent over from Nucleus to, ah, check up on the progress of your investigation. Your employers are getting antsy, you know.”

“It’s—progressing,” Spy says.

The man raises his eyebrows at the table at which Red and Scout’s mother are now sitting. “I can see that. You know, I was told that you were supposed to be fairly efficient.”

The man takes aim, efficient and careful. “In the interest of full disclosure, I was instructed to off the both of them, in the interests of keeping—”

Spy pins the man to the wall in one quick motion, his knife fitted under the spy’s jaw. Spy doesn’t even notice that he’s slit the man’s throat until he hears the messy sound of choking.

He should have gone for a neater method, he notes abstractly. His ears are ringing from the shot that the spy managed to squeeze off before he collapsed. He’s got blood on his suit, and he can feel his breath rush into his lungs, lightheaded with adrenalin and something like fear—where, where had that shot hit.

He should have distracted the spy, should have drawn his fire—at close range, he surely could have grappled with him, and what was a bullet would more or less. Spy flattens himself up against the wall, and glances over to the spot where Red and Scout’s mother were sitting.

Empty, thank god. No blood. They’d probably taken cover as soon as they had heard the shot go off.

The rush of relief makes his knees loose, and he sags against the wall at his back. He couldn’t stay here. Red and Scout’s mother would come and investigate, surely—if they had taken cover for a few seconds before moving in, that gave him three minutes, on the outside.

A little part of him says that he should just stay. Meet them face to face. He’s just killed a man for them, after all. It’s been a long time since he’s killed someone without being paid for the task.

But this, this—it’s too close. It’s not the game it used to be, nor an assignment, but something uneasy that sits strangely in Spy’s chest.

In a moment of utter absurdity, he finds himself standing over a dead body with a scrap of paper in his hand, frantically patting his suit down for a pen. Cutting-edge TF Industries technology in every pocket, and not a functional writing implement among them—he almost tries his fountain pen, narrowly remembering that uncapping it would set off the timer for the bomb inside. In the end, he finds a ballpoint pen in the inside pocket of the body.

His hand shakes a little as he writes. Leftover adrenalin, that’s all.

He starts several notes:

“what were you thinking mon dieu you could have been”

“I don’t do this for just anyone”

“what have you done to me”

He crosses all of this out, the paper tearing a bit.

“M. Red, Mme. Bleu: took care of this for you. Don’t worry, you shall not see me again.”

He tucks the note in the breast pocket of the body, the corner sticking out like a neatly-folded handkerchief.

And that’s all.

\--

He presents the file to the team a few days after. When Spy respawns, cursing Soldier for interrupting his speech and his grand reveal, Red is already long gone. Of course.

Kneeling, he gathers together the scattered photos, slipping them back into the file.

It had been disconcerting to realize how much editing he’d had to do when he put together the final file, how many prints and negatives he’d amassed. He didn’t put any of the notes in. They hadn’t been—relevant to the assignment.

In the end, he’d simply gone with the most straightforward way of stating that RED Spy and Scout’s mother are lovers— the photos of that first encounter, that hotel room with the slats across the window.

He said nothing about Scout’s mother beyond that. They had asked him to investigate the relationship—no more, no less. He’d done his assignment.

There’s a picture missing, he notes. The one with Red and Scout’s mother walking hand in hand.

He can remember the afternoon he’d taken that one. The soft glow of day pulling into evening. The way her hips swayed and bumped his side occasionally when she walked too close to him. The murmur of their conversation rising and falling.

(It was the last photo Spy had taken of them. He’d slipped it in the folder at the last minute, perhaps so he wouldn’t be tempted to slip it into Red’s jacket, next time he got killed.)

It has to be a message, of sorts. Red and Scout’s mother walking away, hands joined, and him, contained behind the camera, finger on the shutter.

Spy closes the file.

\--

Again, little changes. He gets a letter with the promised bonus upon completion of the assignment, along with a mild reprimand against killing outside the respawn zone.

The walls of his developing room are bare now. He’d handed the workshop back to Engineer, saying that he had no further need of it. Engineer had given him an odd look, but said nothing.

A week later, he’s still off his game. He hasn’t been this careless since he’d first started, and even then, he wasn’t making idiotic mistakes. Falling to yet another a clumsy, painful death off of an unfortunately-placed cliff, for instance. Not an experience he cared to repeat once, let alone twice. Or thrice.

Spy freezes when he feels someone at his back, and a leather-sheathed hand tracing along his jawline, moments before he feels the knife driving into his back, metal scraping against bone. In the last moments before everything goes black, he hears RED Spy saying something, but he can’t catch it. The sounds slip away with his awareness.

He’s nursing a headache when he stumbles out of respawn, and he slumps down on the bench to catch his breath, briefly. Sniper comes out moments after, and pats him on the back before heading back out. Spy presses his face into his fingers, slipping them under his mask to knead at his temples. He runs his hand down to his jaw, where he can still feel the faint pressure of fingers.

He just needs a cigarette, that’s all.

When he opens his case, there’s a scrap of paper tucked alongside his disguises. Cigarette paper, with a familiar slanted scrawl:

“Mon cher, you’re getting downright sloppy. Reservations at 20h30—I hope you know the place, by now. PS: For someone who claims to have a talent for decoding, you really are terrible at getting a message.”

As usual, it’s just as infuriating as it is alluring.

\--

They’re already seated at the usual table when he arrives. Out of habit, he hangs back a bit, observing them from the shadows of the entranceway, under the pretext of removing his hat. Red is wearing his usual work suit, without a speck of dust from the field, and Scout’s mother—it takes him a moment to place it, but he remembers the dress from an evening a few weeks back, a tasteful dark blue affair, not especially expensive-looking, but deceptively beautiful on her.

He straightens his tie, and approaches them.

“We really should do something about this tardiness of yours, M. Bleu. I’ve started us off with red, a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, if that’s all right,” Red says, gesturing for him to sit down.

For a moment, Spy stands by the side of the table, awkwardly, before he realizes there’s a third chair pulled up by the two of them. It’s strange to be so close, much less sit with them. But Spy draws himself up into the professional he is, and sits, saying, “A ‘61, I hope?”

He places his camera on the table when he settles, and tries not to say, I know that you have a long scar down your side, I know that soft look when you look at her, I know what you look like when you come. He pulls out his cigarette case and lights one to keep his hands busy, when they itch to adjust the f-stop for the dim light of the restaurant.

“Pleased to meetcha at last, Mr. Blue. Well, face to face, at least,” Scout’s mother says, sticking a hand out over the table. She doesn’t give him the chance to kiss her hand—as soon as he reaches out, she gives his hand a firm shake.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” he says.

Scout’s mother reaches out for the camera, and he lets it go.

“Nice camera. Guess I should be flattered, huh, Mr. Blue? All those pictures! It’s almost enough to make you feel like a movie star,” she says, a smile playing on her lips.

“I was merely doing my job, madame. A particularly pleasant job, but a job nonetheless. I do hope you’ll forgive me for the intrusion of your privacy,” Spy says smoothly. His fingers tap against the table in a quick, nervous tattoo, and he stills them.

Red smirks. “You’re a dedicated man, M. Bleu. Not many would go to such lengths to fulfill an assignment.”

“Well, I’m not most men.”

“A spy through and through, then? A true professional.”

Spy shrugs. “We are all professionals, I hope.”

Scout’s mother shrugs, charmingly rueful. “I darn well hope so!”

Scout’s mother whistles at him, and when he twists around to look at her, there’s the familiar click of a shutter. She smiles. “Payback,” she says, “Though considering the incriminating snaps you’ve got us of us, I think you might owe us a bit more than that.”

“Madame, I do hope you’ll allow me to repay you in whatever way possible.” He doesn’t know what he’s getting into, what exactly is happening here. He reaches out for his camera, but Scout’s mother keeps her hands on it.

“You know, I worked for the school newspaper back in high school,” she muses, fiddling with the settings with practiced hands. “It’ll take me awhile to get the hang of it again, but I’m sure I’ll manage, especially if there’s the incentive.”

“I’m sure M. Bleu would be more than pleased to give you some pointers,” Red says, slinging a hand around her shoulder. “I was never much of a photographer myself, monsieur, but I do know a thing or two.” He reaches forward and puts a hand to Spy’s jaw, an echo of his earlier movement, and Spy is torn between jerking away and leaning into the touch. “I must admit, you do have the bone structure for the mask. Now, if you were to tilt your head slightly, it would catch the candlelight much better, and set off your fine looks—” Red moves Spy’s head to the right, a small, precise movement. His hand lingers, and Spy hears the shutter snap again before Red takes his hand off.

His mouth is suddenly very dry, and he takes a gulp of wine, smooth and musky against his tongue. Red has impeccable taste, of course. “My mother always did tell me I was made for the screen.” It’s a paltry comeback, but it’s all he can think of at the moment.

Scout’s mother puts the camera aside—out of his reach, he notes—and folds her hands on the table. Business-like. “Let’s cut to the chase, or we’ll spend the whole night exchanging witty commentary. Really, I don’t know why I keep on getting mixed up with the likes of you two.”

Red lets out a barking laugh, and nudges her shoulder. “You know exactly why.”

“And do I ever regret it.” She’s smiling as she nudges him back. “If I’d had my way, this could have been so much simpler. But no, it had to be, oh, cherie, don’t ruin the fun, he’ll love this one, I bet he won’t get this one.”

That feeling inside Spy’s chest is decidedly not a flutter. If there’s one things spies do not do, it’s flutter. Then again, they technically aren’t supposed to deliberately play cat and mouse with the enemy, either.

He opens his mouth to point out that M. Red gravely underestimated him if he thought that he could not figure out his childish puzzles. He doesn’t get any further than “Oh, monsieur—“ before Scout’s mother rolls her eyes and presses a slim finger to his lips, gentle and firm.

“We’ll get back to exchanging witty insults in two secs. Hear me out.” She leans back, brushing her thumb against Spy’s lower lip. “I have a business proposition for you. An arrangement, if you like. It would be far easier for you to keep an eye on us if, oh, you joined us for dinner. Once or twice a week—we can work out a schedule that works for all of us. As far as restaurants go, I’m sure we can find something we all like.”

Spy takes a sip of wine and tries not to say, yes, oui, si, a thousand times yes. “Might I ask what your particular interest in this arrangement is?”

“Well, you seem like a decent conversationalist,” Red says, looking thoughtful.

“In my case, I’m starting a collection, see,” Scout’s mother says with a grin, “Handsome men with a tendency towards wearing ski masks. Now my boys are all grown-up, I need something new to keep me busy.”

“And a hotel room is much cheaper when split three ways,” Red adds bluntly.

“That, too. I’ve always been a bit of skinflint,” Scout’s mother says, sighing.

“I’m glad you agree, ma petite chou-fleur.”

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that? It was only the one time, and you’ve got to admit, my French is darn good, now.”

Spy doesn’t say anything, looking at the two of them, their faces golden in the candlelight.

He resolutely doesn’t jump as he feels the slim toe of Scout’s mother’s shoe tracing along the inside of his foot, and Red’s glove-covered hand high on his thigh.

And it suddenly doesn’t feel like much of a decision at all.

“I’ll have to introduce you to a little restaurant I favour. This is all very nice, but you must get a bit, ah, bored coming to the same place all the time,” Spy says.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say bored,” Red says, “But I’m always willing to try something new.”

“I do hope this won’t interfere with any of your battlefield duties.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Red says with a grin. When he leans forward, the perfect hang of his suit jacket pulls slightly with the weight of his knife, just below his heart.

Spy settles back in his chair, swirling wine around his glass. It’s unnerving how very right this feels. Like that spark of excitement that comes when a sapper is perfectly placed, when the possible danger heats his blood to something electric inside his veins.

He’s probably sporting a deeply unsuave grin at the moment.

“Cut the shop talk, boys, we’ve got dinner incoming, and I’m hungry as a horse,” Scout’s mother says, tugging playfully on Red’s tie.

Red laughs and kisses her cheek. “But of course.”

Dinner is excellent.

\--

(Even more so when Scout’s mother tugs him into a dark alley when they step out of the restaurant. Spy’s hand automatically goes for his gun, but her lips are already on his, kissing him hard. His hands hang in the air for a surprised second before settling on her slim waist, and he thinks, oh, that’s what she feels like. Spy feels like the breath’s been punched out of him, and he can only gasp as Red presses himself to his back, tugging up his balaclava and sucking a mark into the crook of his neck, just above the cut of his shirt.

They do make it back to a hotel room, eventually.)

\--

When Sniper asks him what he looks so happy about, Spy simply says that it’s good to have an assignment done with. Sniper smiles and goes back to dissembling his rifle.

\--

A series of notes, tucked into RED Spy’s cigarette case:

“Putain Red those were my last cigarettes. I expect a pack in return, merci.”

“Mon cher, I would do no such thing! What kind of man would steal another’s cigarettes? Only someone of low moral fibre, clearly, and I am no such man.”

“This would be a lot more convincing if you hadn’t tasted like a particularly familiar kind of cigarettes this morning.”

“Dinner at eight, children, after we make good on this latest assignment?”

“So long as M. Red picks up the tab.”

“You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll take it.”

\--

  
[   
](http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff86/renquise/?action=view&current=fromthemixed-upfilesofMBluSpy.jpg)   


**Author's Note:**

> Photos from [this flikr set](http://www.flickr.com/photos/tompalumbo/sets/72157604469886784/) by Tom Palumbo, and title from "Story of a Hotel Room," by Rosemary Tonks.


End file.
